Summer's Best Combo

Watermelon and tomatoes may seem an unlikely combination, but when you put them together in a salad or sorbet you'll be amazed at how good they taste. There's a healthful bonus too. Both are high in lycopene, which helps prevent certain types of cancer.

Chef Bill Smith at Crook's Corner Cafe & Bar in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, first put his Tomato-and-Watermelon Salad on the menu about two years ago to rave reviews. "It sounds peculiar," he says, "But it's one of those things that once people taste it, they love it."

Even Bill was a little surprised at how well the two fruits married. "I think it was actually an accident," he says modestly. "We had lots of both items in the kitchen at one time, so I needed to find a use for them. I had enjoyed a watermelon gazpacho once before, and that kind of planted the seed for the salad."

We asked Bill to create another dish to share with you, and Tomato-Watermelon Sorbet is the result. Try a taste of one of the coolest concoctions we've seen in a while.

"Summer's Best" is from the July 2007 issue of Southern Living.

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